snack; between-meal food
Archaic term for a snack or light food eaten between meals. Not used in modern Japanese; the common word is おやつ or 間食.
In Edo-period documents, the word 間物 is used to refer to sweets or light snacks.
Compound of 間 (あいだ, 'interval, between') and 物 (もの, 'thing'), literally 'between-thing'. The exact historical derivation is uncertain, but it follows a common pattern for naming snacks as food eaten between meals.